5 Great Ways to Enjoy Beautiful Mallorca

The sunny island of Mallorca is one of my favorites, it has something that always makes me return. Walking on cliffs, swimming in calm turquoise waters and strolling in the old town of Palma are my ways to enjoy the beautiful Mallorca.

Or should I go hiking in the mountains, or just drive across the countryside? I can do all that in a week.

Mallorca is a small island and everything is within a short drive. So let’s go and explore the beautiful Mallorca.

View of Estellencs, Serra de Tramuntana, Mallorca

Mallorca can also be a tourist trap if you want that. There are huge resorts where charter flights take tourists from all over Europe.

It’s up to you. You can stay in tourist resorts or you can choose to stay elsewhere. You can spend all your time where other tourists are, or you can rent a car and see the island.

This post shows you the beautiful Mallorca that exists outside tourist resorts.

So where should you go in Mallorca? First, go and see the capital.

1. Stroll through Palma de Mallorca Old Town

A modernist building in central Palma

Palma de Mallorca sounds like a tourist city and it is that, but above all it’s a living city of 400 000 local inhabitants. It’s a hundreds of years old city where Arabs, Jews and Christians have lived and they all together made the city to what it is now.

Stroll in the quiet medieval lanes of the old town of Palma, have a coffee or glass of wine under shady trees and enjoy the Balearic atmosphere. And don’t miss the 20th century modernist buildings, you can find many of them if you look upwards.

2. Walk along the Rocky Coasts

A beach in sight

Mallorca is known for its sandy beaches. Beaches around Palma are either long and wide like the beach east of Palma and the one in Palma Nova, or they can be small sandy coves like the ones just west of the city.

We chose to stay in Portals Nous that is a quiet residential area yet close to Palma. Portals Nous is partly a rocky area with high sea cliffs which makes the place very scenic. It’s an ideal place for walking. But this is not the only area like that. Beautiful Mallorca has this kind of landscape all over the island and I like these places so much more than wide beaches.

You can walk from beach to beach along stony paths and paved roads and then dry your sweat on the next beach just around the corner that probably is – postcard pretty!

Walking on the Mallorcan coastline: Portals Nous and Illetas

3. Drive to Pretty Mountain Villages

Valldemossa, Mallorca

After you have spent a couple of days on the beaches you probably want to do something else. Take your car and steer to winding mountain roads.

Take the road from Andratx to Valldemossa and on to Soller. It’s not a long drive but you will see a lot of beauty. Or stay still closer, on the other side of the mountains and see what Puigpunent and Es Capdella wine growing regions are like.

4. Hike in Serra de Tramuntana

Hiking in Serra de Tramuntana

These pretty villages are a part of Serra de Tramuntana. Mallorca has a long mountain chain in the north and west with many peaks over 1000 m.

There are medieval walking trails that the locals have been using for hundreds of years. Now Mallorca is connecting these old mule trails and building new ones to establish a long hiking route that covers the whole mountain chain, Something like 150 km in all.

Hiking that would need a week which you may not want. Instead you can enjoy the fantastic scenery just taking short hikes in this UNESCO World Heritage listed area. There are many of them and these photos are from our hike from Port de Valldemossa to S’Estaca. We left our car in Port de Valldemossa and we hiked the same route both ways.

5. Dine in Local Villages

Beach resorts have an awful lot of restaurants and they mainly have the same style. If you feel you have seen them already you can take your car and drive to any local village for dinner.

Mallorca is an island of short distances so there’s always a village within half an hour with local restaurants in beautiful surroundings instead of the tourist ones on the coast.

Or why not just drop in villages earlier on the day, for a lunch or coffee?

Dining in beautiful Mallorcan villages

These were my top 5 tips to help you discover the beautiful Mallorca on your vacation. Have a nice holiday!

Map of Beautiful Mallorca

Mallorca is the biggest of the Spanish Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. The island has one million inhabitants half of which live in Palma. The other Balearic Islands are Ibiza, Menorca and Formentera.

Air connections to Mallorca are excellent and driving in Mallorca is safe and easy. The two languages of Mallorca are Catalan and Spanish and English is widely spoken.